Edsel Revamp

After driving the Edsel for a couple of years I started getting some Suspension problems. I suppose I could have expected that by driving around on cut coil and the A-arms pointing at the roofs of the sky scrapers downtown. The ball joints were absolutely hammered! I was driving with 3 inch blocks in the back and whenever I had rear passengers they would say they could feel a banging on the floor (I wasn't particularly surprised by this)

I figured the solution was to air bag the car. I threw around doing a 4 link. I ordered a triangulated 4 link kit and found something out, UNIVERSAL MEANS FITS NOTHING! So I went to the drawing board. I got really interested in road racing stuff and studied countless hours and found the 3 link had better packaging, especially if I wanted to go to air bags.

I started by cutting out the factory shock mounts. You can see the small stub left when I cut this out. I built an arch to base the whole thing off of. The pipes sticking up is the height of the airbag, representing the ride height, which is how I determined where to weld in the airbag mount. The gap from the bottom of the airbag mount to the top of the pipe is because the weight is off the rear end and the suspension hanging.

Here is a mock up of the 3-link suspension with the Watts link. I added arches from the main arch to tie into the air bag mounts to support them and to add shock mounts.

This picture shows a mock up of the 3-link, This also shows the raised trans tunnel tacked into place.

I  this picture you can clearly see why my passengers were complaining of a large bang. The dark spots is where the rearend was hitting the floor pan. The strange part is, I found the driveshaft hit the floor  before the rearend hit the bump stops. Perhaps the Edsels were not created with the best of quality control, but I feel I can improve on where Ford failed and make a cooler, better driving car.

Using the piece I cut out and shaping it to fit, I added 2 inches in length and a tapering strip about an inch and a half at the largest spot. With the shocks topped out, the rearend just barely touched the rearend, I could loosely fit my hand between the tunnel and the driveshaft..

A problem I ran into was that I didn't want to run the exhaust close to the airbags. I found the Kickup in the frame was a perfect spot to to go to the outside of the frame. I removed the leaf spring and hangers which gave me almost 3 inches to run 2 inch pipes. I would have alot of room to run 2 inch pipes.

This is the pipe I built using 2 inch mandrel U-bends. This pipe runs along the outside of the frame.

I wrapped the pipe to keep the heat down between the tires and the pipe.

After driving this car for a couple of years, I was starting to get reduced tank capacity. I couldn't fill it past 3/4 of a tank without it leaking. I had always thought the sending unit was leaking. Well, when I pulled the tank I found this, someone epoxied a pick up tube through the top of the tank and plugged the original pick up. After digging further, I found that the tank was coated internally and that the original pickup was probably plugged. Unfortunately this is not the correct way to repair a tank. Because of the internal coating, I couldn't weld on this tank.

After doing research on tank dimensions, I found that a 63 Galaxie tank was relatively the same size and shape as the original. I was able to make it fit with slight modification to the strap mounts. After test fitting, I found that the filler neck was a little bit short so I cut the filler neck off the original tank and welded it to the new one.

After the tank was sorted out, I decided that the drovers rear quarter was the best place to put the compressor and tank.

I cut a piece of plywood to mesh with the beads rolled in the floor. I also took a pice of plank, routered the edges so it was rounded off for the compressor to fit on and act as a mount for the tank legs. On the other end of the tank mount, which mounts to the floor, it tapered so I cut the floor, raised it so it was flat and welded some nuts on the bottom.

The mount coated with urethane box liner.

The finished product, the tank and compressor installed. The edges of the wood was urethaned to the floor to blend in when when the box liner was applied.

The lower a-arms had the original bushing in them. They were very badly worn. Along witht that you could see that the bump stop is rubbed off from them pointing so high with just being on cut springs.

Since I will be running shock waves, I plated in the bottom of the spring pockets for added strength since the entire weight of the car will be on this point. 

Since I am running Fat man lowering spindles to correct the suspension geometry, the original bump stops needed to be removed. I filled and welded the ends to keep the strength, since I will be running a inch a a quarter sway bar on the front.

The new versus the old sway bar.

This explains the loose front end! The original upper ball joints! All the ball joints, bushings, tie rod ends are replaced. This thing should handle like crazy now!!!

All painted up and ready for installation!

The fatman spindles allow me to upgrade to disk brakes on the front. this car did not stop well, so I took the opportunity to add a vacuum boosted master cylinder. This was not exactly easy to install since the shifter linkage was in the way, so I took a couple of hydraulic rod ends and a rod, and bent it in such a way that it connected to the back of the shifter linkage giving an inch of room. I found that the shifter linkage that was there was tack welded and cracked. So, probably best that I changed them out.

The Fleetline Thrash!

Again, it has been awhile since I have posted. In that time I was super focused on the Fleetline. I had been invited to the world of wheels in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I finished assembling the car, while Lauren worked on and finished the seats and interior. The deadline was tight, so the headliner and door panels were commissioned to De Greeves Interiors in Calgary. I had managed to assemble and install all of the side glass and tracks before dropping the car off at the upholsterer. I picked up the car the day before the show and they did a fantastic Job!

I won my class at the World of Wheels. I also won the street heat award for Custom. But what meant the most to me me Was when Trent Sherill contacted me to take pictures of the Fleetline for Traditional Rod and Kulture. We went to Kaninaskis Country and took Pictures, it was awesome.

Lauren having a look at her handy work

                   

 

Finished shots of the interior taken by Trent Sherrill

                                 

 Setup at the world of wheels

 The Street Achievement for Custom!

Stylin at the photoshoot!

Because I was sick of fooling around with the dual carb setup on this thing, I am going to a FAST EFI with a drop in tankpump

So much happening, so little posting!

Again I have found myself not posting to this blog. I keep promising myself that I will post more, but life gets in the way. Since my last post I have built an 800 Square foot garage including building my own cement forms. Thankfully my girfriend knows what she is doing when it comes to construction work. From dirt work to drywall the entire project took 4 months, in which I still made some progress on the fleetline. Within that time, I have also started doing management courses to advance my career for my day job, although my offtime in the garage is alot more interesting.

 

Above is a clevis I modified from a Lokar kit to work with the original bell crank to adapt it toa cable type system

The above sits behind the master cylinder providing clearance for the brak lines and the hole is for the cable casing to go into and lock in with a c-clip

Follow the clivis, down the cable. You can see the c-clip holding the cable sheath in place.

 

The cable splitter, attached to the frame with quarter inch self tapping screw

 The rear end of the carall buttoned up and ready to go!

My new splash pan installed. The fender welting is from a volkswagon. I think it finished it off nicely.

 

 

Sitting in the new garage, drywall isnt quite done. Dont worry, the car was coverd and protected from the dust and mud splatters while any work was being performed!

Windshield and trim installed

A clip I had to fabricate to install the window trim

 

The milling machine and lathe are finally home from my Dads farm after being in storage after a year. They are a little worse for wear and need some attention, but I am super excited to be back at it!

 

My girlfriend and I bought a collaberative project!!!

 

Stay tuned!!

 

 

 

Shifting into progress

Its been a few weeks since my last post. Since then I have been working on some very meticulous operations. Things that are very time consuming and need to be done right or the outcome is ugly or disasterous.



It took some real thinking to get aroung this, but completing a dual exhaust system that flows into the lake pipes. I spent a few weeks measuring and cutting pipe to make this work. I have a trick on the mandrel bends, I take a zip tie and slide it to where I need to cut the angle out of the pipe. Trace it and cut along the line. When I am ready to tack weld the pieces I have made I tape the together and leave a few gaps big enough to lay a couple of nice tacks. In this situation, except for where the pipes cross over for each side, both sides were identical. I built one side, brought it to the beck and clamped it down. I bolted the flange to it, measure so that it was equidistant from the other set of pipes. I then cut the opposite bends to match. This way I could make them exactly the same. You can see in the top picturethat the pies when bolted up end up in the identical spots.

 



This picture shows the T5 transmission installed and the new crossmember welded in place and painted. My friend Brett came over and helped me torque the clutch, install the release bearing and set up the clutch. Some of those jobs that are pretty tough or impossible to do on your own.  I also scrubbed down the floor pan and undercoated it in black.

A few months back I went to an antique store, I had the idea in my head that I wanted to use an antique doorknob as a shifter for the T5. I ended up finding a black porcelain door knob. I ground out the square hole large enough to fit over the shifter arm threads. Because this hole was square there was not enough material to thread it. It is also made from cast steel so I machined down a nut that was the proper thread for the shifter handle. I took my time welding it one tack at a time, grinding it just a little to remove contaminants, then waiting for it to cool to prevent the cast steel from cracking.

In the end I was pretty pleasd with the final product. It looks great in  the car an definitely fits with the style of it.

                          


The picture on the left shows the plate I ade to seal the trunk floor where the shock tower inside the trunck penetrates through the floor. I cut 4 round pieces 3 inches in diameter. I then cut a square hole in them and 2 of the platesgot run through the bead roller to make a flange to over lap the other piece.

The picture on the right shows the plate I made to seal where the upper 4 link bars come into the cabin area. I made the frame and hammered it into shape to match the floor profile and screwed it down. I then went underneath the car and shoved a piece of paper from underneath, taped it in place and traced it. This was then cut out and transferred to metal, cut out of metal and hammered over a piece of pipe to match the diameter of the hole in the floor. When it was hammered to the profile needed it was tacked, unscrewed from the floor and welded on the bench. The best part is, it still fits with lots of clearance for the seat.

The above picture shows how I clamped the fenderskirt rubber in place while I glued it. The procedure was simple, there is a lip that rolls over the edge, but the edge needs to be glued and held in place. These little clamps are only 90 cents each.

While I was waiting for the glue to dry, I painted my fuel tank. I had tried doing a Gene winfield pearl fade on it at one time that was an experement using canadian tire pearl and candy paint which was laquer based. When I cleared it the colours had all bled into eachother making a neon green tank that wasnt so awesome.

 

Looks alot better in semi-gloss black. I had managed to install the tank and a new fuel line. I had bough a new fuel pump with a vacuum pump on the top of it to gain some vacuum for the windshield wipers. Unfortunately when I went to install it the bolts I had were too short, it was getting late at night, and I had to leave the next day on a flight to start my shift in Ft. McMurray, I have a little job waiting for me when I get back.

The Sweetline is starting to come together. The list is starting to get smaller and smaller. Brake lines, rebuilding the rear diff and painting it and installing the new brakes, finishing the fuel pump, installing the rear bumper and installing the windows and the last of the trim